Legendary Gems in Diablo 3 are seeing some major changes

In Diablo 3, one of the most consistent ways to improve and specialize your character in the endgame is though choosing and leveling up Legendary Gems. Reanalyzing the entire system however, Blizzard has decided to bring some changes to how a number of the Legendary Gems in Diablo 3 work.

Explaining the changes, Blizzard details that each gem is meant to fall into, or across, a specific set of categories. While some might have broadly defined roles, like buffing your defenses, others are meant to fill and push a particular playstyle niche, enhance specific gameplay activities, like leveling and gold farming, or serve as utility buffs to characters, providing multiple types of benefits at lower overall levels. Looking at the system as a whole, the team realized some gems weren’t fitting in those categories, or even might just not be fitting as well as they could.

“While we aren’t updating every Legendary Gem that might need a little help (and it’s possible we’ll re-examine other gems in the future), there are quite a few that stuck out to us as either needing more clearly defined roles or just that layer of new polish to keep them up to date in a Sanctuary that’s evolved over time,” Blizzard says.

Hoping to shed light on the thought process behind the changes, the developer has detailed a few gems in particular that are being changed.

First off is Enforcer, a gem originally made to increase the damage of your pets by 15%, while decreasing the damaged they take by 25%. Increasing that damage reduction, Blizzard states, “In addition to giving a bump in power to pet builds, we wanted to add more survivability to pets overall. This gem should be the obvious choice to players who run a pet build, but the benefit wasn’t always worth the socket. This should be a much clearer choice now.”

In the case of Gogok of Swiftness, a gem that has a 50% chance to give the player Swiftness, an effect that adds 1% attack speed for 4 seconds and can stack up to 15 times, now each attack gives Swiftness. And each stack of Swiftness adds a bonus chance to Dodge.

“Gogok of Swiftness provides very specific buffs and serves as a utility gem. However, it was lacking multi-purpose functionality, so we’ve added a Toughness component in the form of a Dodge bonus. This should make Gogok a more competitive choice for players who are either looking specifically to stack Attack Speed or Cooldown Reduction (or both!) while providing extra Toughness in the process.”

“These aren’t the only changes coming, so if you haven’t already, be sure to log into the PTR, try out some (or all) of these changes, and let us know your thoughts. It’s important to us that the community has a chance to get their hands on these shiny baubles and give them a go. Your feedback is some of the most valuable loot we could hope to have drop, and we look forward to hearing what you have to say!”

Now live in the game’s Public Test Realm (PTR), look for these changes to be making their way to Diablo 3 proper in the near future.

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